Monthly Archives: April 2007

The year is winding down quickly. Someone pointed out to me the other day that we had 7 more Mondays for this school year. We have 8 more Fridays. While that means that this year is quickly coming to a close, it also means that our debut Podcast is coming up quickly. We’ve worked out some of the technical issues. We’re going to polish some of that up and work on some of the procedural kind of things. Mostly though, we’re getting to work on developing the kind of show that Middle School Educators will find:

Useful

Entertaining

Humorous

Thoughtful

Insightful

Relevant

Intriguing

Exciting

And much, much more! OK, so we aim a little high. As always, if you have any suggestions, drop us a line.

I’ve long said that we are in time of great change in education. The changes that are taking place for middle school, high school and the rest of the educational experience bear that out. I’ve also said that the job of educators isn’t the same one as it was 30 years ago. Heck, it isn’t even the same job as 10 years ago. In fact, I’m not sure that it’s the same job that Universities are currently preparing teachers for.

However, it wasn’t completely clear to me exactly how the job was different. It is now becoming more and more clear. However, not everything is changing.

Let’s start with the vestiges of what was. Our schedule is still derived from the farming schedule. In fact, lawmakers in Michigan like the schedule so much that we are barred by law from having students return to school before Labor Day. That is one example of what was. Those same lawmakers also passed a law that every student must have an “on-line” experience. New schedule, meet the old schedule.

Teachers are being asked to do more and more. Yet we don’t recognize that. We don’t honor that. We don’t applaud that.